THE JANUS $\""".
Battle for The Abbey: A Record of Two Weel<s on the Cassino Front The Record of the first Allied attack on Cassino by the late Thomas Durrance (CM 42) was excerpted from a recently resuifaced manuscript edited by James H. Scott, II (CM 41, FR 8) and donated to the Archives by Walter Doyle (CM 41). Thomas Durrance, a 567 Coy volunteer ambulance driver and a War Correspondent with TIME/LIFE Magazine served in the battle of Cassino in 1944. The "Battle for The Abbey" was first submitted to TIME in the spring of 1944. February 16
I
nthe morning and afternoon Kittyhawks (American Curtiss-Wright P-40 fighter bombers used by the Royal Air Force) dive-bomb Monastery Hill with even better success than yesterday's Boeing B-17 heavy bombers. The Abbey is almost completely crushed, with one half of one bomb-battered wall still left standing. Instead of coming into the target on a straight line or curving into it, the Kittyhawks see-saw up to a position either to the left or right of it, then peel off for the attack. They keel over and pass vertically for the Hill. Just as they break for their dive and start to pull out of it, you can see the blast from their bombs shooting up to meet them, throwing debris in every direction. Our guns open up at six 0' clock - all three regiments. As far as we can see, an orange-red line of fire lights up the sky. The noise is deafening, reverberating in the hills until it's a continuous roar.
Tom Durrance at an Advanced Medical Post near Cassion, March 4,/944. (photo hy Holton)
Each salvo from the battery across the road flaps the front of our tent and blows up the candles with a hot cordite perfumed breath. We try to sleep. As the guns fire I feel as if someone was pounding the soles of my feet with as heavy board, the barrage lasts all night.